Zendaya on Using Her Platform to Combat Bullying

“She’s beautiful and rad, with a fearlessness that is impressive in someone her age. I think I still have quite a bit to learn from Zendaya.”—Zac Efron, actor

Zendaya was in fifth grade when she learned the power of action—and inaction. One of her classmates was being bullied, and Zendaya, like many of her classmates, stood by and watched rather than get involved. Some parents, hearing the story, wrote it off as kids being kids, but not Zendaya’s parents. “They pulled me out of the classroom, and I got a little bit cussed out,” she says. “I was like, ‘This is B.S. I didn’t do anything.’ But the point was, when you see something happening, you don’t just stand there. Knowing something is wrong and not doing anything is basically like doing it.”

Zendaya, now 20, still lives by that philosophy. The star of Shake It Up and K.C. Undercover has 32 million Instagram followers and has been fearless about using her massive reach, campaigning for change on issues including body image (she called out Modeliste for publishing a visibly retouched photo of her; the magazine apologized) and beauty ideals: When Fashion Police’s Giuliana Rancic criticized Zendaya’s locs at the 2015 Oscars, the star posted that she’d chosen the look “to remind people of color that our hair is good enough.” She admits she’d initially felt like lashing back. “But then I was like, ‘You know what? Delete that. I’m going to write something that’s actually powerful.’”

Today Zendaya has emerged as a key voice of a generation pushing for change. “[Acting] has been my passion,” she says. “But as I’ve started to understand the power and influence I have, I’ve realized it’s really this avenue for me to do bigger, more meaningful things. For me to help somebody.” Helping others, it seems, is in her DNA. At age eight, she asked friends to donate money to an animal shelter in lieu of giving her a birthday gift. At 18, she mobilized her fan base to benefit Convoy of Hope’s feedONE initiative. At 19, she did the same for UNAIDS (the United Nations program that combats HIV/AIDS) and raised $50,000—a lot of money considering it came mostly from her fans’ allowances. “She is showing that young people are actors of change: supporting young girls, refusing to accept violence against women,” says Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS. “Zendaya is a role model for that new activism.”

Her platform will grow larger next year as she leaps into movies, with starring roles in Spider Man: Homecoming and The Greatest Showman, alongside Hugh Jackman. (Also slated: a fashion line, Daya by Zendaya; a second album; and Zendaya: The App, for fans to shop and connect with the star.) But if Zendaya is striving for a better future, she’d also like to see a better now. In September she took to Snapchat to suggest that racism had led a California supermarket clerk to treat her and a friend badly. The incident made waves, as she’d planned. “It’s a discussion,” she says. “It’s like, ‘Yo, I can’t believe this happened to me. Does this happen to you guys? We should do something about it.’ ”

Her fans follow that lead. “I get picked on because I’m black! And because of you I stand up for myself,” a fan tweeted her in August. That’s the reaction Zendaya strives for. “You have to learn to appreciate yourself and the power you hold,” she says. “Whatever is inside of you—your soul, your power—find it. See it. Respect it. Protect it. And use it.”